Black Belt Prep

I didn’t sleep great, but wasn’t exhausted when I woke and felt OK as I walked downstairs. With rain likely, and a little wind, I decided to hit the gym next door to the hotel and run on the treadmill. I wasn’t sure how well this would go as a few treadmills I’ve found in the UK were not great models, but in this case it wasn’t bad.

The first one started, but when I got to 6.0mph, it tripped the breaker and reset. That was OK since it’s been a long week, but when I started again it tripped at 5.8. I’d already walked, so I moved over one and started up the next one, going right to 6.4. It felt fast for a minute, but after 2-3 min I was warm and decided to try to run quicker and took it to 6.6mph. That was a good pace, and it got me to to .96mi at 9 min. Not bad, slightly off the pace I need by about 20 sec, but with a potential black belt test run on Sun, I decided to go a little quicker and took it to 6.8 for about 5 minutes, and then 7.0, which took me to 1.99 at 18:00, almost what I need. I actually was closer as I finished 2.0mi at 18:04, so if I’d have run the first mile at 6.7, I’d have been fine.

I thought I would be, but this was good prep for me, and when it’s the real race, I would myself more nervous than I thought. I’m sure I’ll run a little faster when I do the run for real, and am tempted to aim for 8min/miles, but I don’t want to push too hard.